Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday July 22, 2012 @01:09PM
from the how-to-lie-with-statistics-in-a-big-way dept.

First time accepted submitter fredprado writes "Apparently at least one subcontractor hired to clean up the Fukushima site has been urging their workers to put their radiation detectors lined under lead shieldings.
A diagram can be seen here. The authorities decided not to prosecute him, even after one employee presenting them recordings of him trying to talk the said employee into it."

Probably Springfield, capital of Illinois. People drive stupidly here. There's a local joke about a man from New York visiting Chicago. The New Yorker gets in a cab, and the cab driver promptly runs a red light.

"You ran a red light!"

"It's ok, I'm from Springfield!" A mile down the road and he runs another. "YOU RAN ANOTHR ONE!!!" the excited passenger exclaims.

"Don't worry, I'm from Springfield".

The next light is green, and the cab driver slams on the brakes. "WTF did you do that for???" the passenger asks.

By similar logic, people should drive at night with their headlights off. If they can't be seen, it makes it harder for other drivers to hit them.

Right. I think you're catching on. An extra advantage is, when your lights are on, the light going out pushes your car backwards. That's alright if you want it, but if you turn off your lights, you can literally save gas. And gas is our most valuable natural resource.

Of course. Much better to damage cheaper, more expendable, replaceable components.

And of course, it's much better to talk about this detector issue than the 36 percent Of Fukushima kids who have abnormal thyroid growths. We don't want people to think there may be negative consequences to nuclear power.

1. "It is extremely rare to find cysts and thyroid nodules in children."

2. "This is an extremely large number of abnormalities to find in children."

3. "You would not expect abnormalities to appear so early — within the first year or so — therefore one can assume that they must have received a high dose of [radiation]."

4. "It is impossible to know, from what [officials in Japan] are saying, what these lesions are."

Dr. Helen Caldicott, pediatrician, about the implications of the study.

And how are they supposed to do that? Individual workers calling their Senators up on the phone, each one of them telling the Senator something slightly different from the last one? Senators don't take phone calls from workers. They take phone calls from executives.

Actually, they don't take phone calls from either. They take phone calls from lobbyists, people with whom they have a relationship and who have worked with them before. Corporate management has plenty of money to hire them. Individual workers don't.

They can, however, get together and pool their money to hire a lobbyist. We should make up a name for such a unified group of people.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system, far from it. But it's not even close to the "legalized bribe" that most people who don't work in Washington imagine it is.

Having been a candidate for public office before, I will say it is hard to turn down campaign donations from groups that offer enough money to finance your campaign. And I've had offers from groups that I most certainly didn't agree with for money I could have desperately used in order to finance my campaign.

While the laws have changed somewhat since this practice was happening, there was in the past an option for federal office holders (Senate & U.S. House) to be able to pocket excess campaign donations after they were defeated in an election or went into retirement. This still is the case for some state and municipal office seekers (and certainly was in my case when running for municipal office). I had to report all of the donations of course and file formal reports on all of the income and expenses (which typically break even if you are being serious about a campaign), but if a "generous donation" was to fall in your lap, it certainly could end up being something very much like a legalized bribe.

I do agree though with the fact that lobbyists do much more than handing out huge piles of money. They do tend to be experts on the topics they advocate about and can be very useful in terms of being able to understand what a particular constituency group or industry group thinks about a particular piece of legislation. As long as you understand the bias that the bring to the table, they can also be useful for obtaining information about that particular topic they are advocating for as well.

The ability to pocket excess campaign cash ended quite some time ago, in 1989. The FEC has spent a long time tightening the laws. They're still far from perfect, of course.

Candidates do from time to time get big donations from groups who disagree with them, and they need to look closely at just what's going on there. It's illegal to promise to vote for their pet bill in exchange. About the most you can do is an unspoken opportunity to take their meeting, though you have to pretend it's a coincidence rather

Illegal pooling of power? I guess you can make anything illegal, but from say a Rothbardian natural rights point of view (I'm guessing you're a libertarian) there is absolutely nothing wrong with banding together in contract negotiations (unless there are pre-existing contractual promises not to do so). Nor even stipulating in those negotiations that all employees have to be union...

Now of course a lot of current employment law is not exactly Rothbardian, but that's an orthogonal issue.

Here's the nice thing about the free market. If you don't like something your employer tells you to do, you don't have to work for them. In fact, with a free enough society, you can tell others what your employer tried to tell you to do which will either:

A) Cause the employer's customers not to support him and therefore he goes bust.

B) Cause the employees to all quit their job or demand higher pay to work.

C) Cause the employer to change his orders to prevent A or B from happening.

Really. It doesn't. Globalism Breaks Capitalism. Period. It's that simple. You are completing on the global stage. Your employer is not. You can't win. You can't keep up. They will import desperate workers from impoverished countries. You will compete with them for food and shelter. Automation makes you disposable and obsolete. You can't work elsewhere, because there are very few jobs (automation) and there are lots of people to do those jobs (globalism).

Free market Capitalism is fundamentally broken. Adam Smith wasn't a futurist. He had no vision. Ayn Rand was just a little woman afraid of a nasty dictator. Get over your fear, and learn to face facts. Adam couldn't, Ayn couldn't. Can you?

Umm, he published more than one work. You're probably thinking of The Communist Manifesto which was written to inspire the working class to rise up. His economic theories are laid out in a work called "Das Capital" (IIRC).

You're right that it was abused, but I would argue that no country has ever implemented communism as Marx talked about it. IE it has never been tried.

Further, there is nothing about Marx's communism that necessarily requires keeping people in the dark in an authoritarian system. IIRC

What I believe you are forgetting is that humans aren't machinery. The right employees can make and break a company. Companies who believe that employees are disposable and you can find another usually don't stay in business for very long.

And, no, I'm not talking about head CEOs or people with "vision" for the company but everyday, common, employees. If an employee adds no value compared to their cost, of course they will be replaced with someone who does, so the goal as an employee

The root of our economic problem (as you hinted at, but stopped short of actually saying), is that our economy depends on balance. That balance is the level of production and the level of consumption being about equal. When Production becomes too great, companies cut back. When consumption becomes too great, shortages drive up costs and cause a bubble (which will burst). The basic trouble is that technology constantly drives increases in production, and decreases in overall consumption. (Greater production at lower cost, pushes wealth to the top, but the consumers have less money to buy things, so consumption actually is reduced. There are only two forces on earth that combat this trend, and restore balance to the economy, and one or both will result. The first is taxes. The best known way to get the wealth back from the top, and restore the consumption power it has, is to return it to the bottom by the way of social programs (health care, disability, welfare). The second way is revolution. With not enough taxes on the wealthy to counteract the concentrating effects of innovation, the concentration of wealth at the top unbalances the economy, causing rapid economic swings, volatile prices, and unemployment. If the process continues unchecked, the only logical result is revolution, and it is invariable, and inevitable.

Have to step in to defend Adam Smith here. He actually did see the problems that inevitably come with employers having more power than workers, and (as he did with everything) went on at some length about it. If half the people wearing Adam Smith ties had actually read The Wealth of Nations, they'd call him a commie.

It's worth noting that Smith strongly advocated market regulation. He warned that inadequate or incompetent regulation of the market would lead to exactly the sorts of problems we're having now. He further warned against anything like corporate personhood as that would remove moral thinking from economic decisions.

The so-called proponents of Smith's Capitalism are VERY selective about which parts they implement and 100% of his warnings have fallen on deaf ears. They are just as bad as the fundamentalist Jihadists who like to skip over all the bits about not killing 'people of the book'.

This outlook is common, and unfortunately it is fundamentally bigoted.

"I am deserving of this job, but that brown skinned person is not! He's willing to work for less than me, and live in worse conditions than me, therefor I'm a better person. Having to compete with people who demand less sucks."

It does suck, but globalization fundamentally equalizes things. You forget that you live on 30-50K a year, while billions of people live on under $5000 a year. If some of those people currently living in such horrib

Really. It doesn't. Globalism Breaks Capitalism. Period. It's that simple. You are completing on the global stage. Your employer is not. You can't win. You can't keep up. They will import desperate workers from impoverished countries. You will compete with them for food and shelter. Automation makes you disposable and obsolete. You can't work elsewhere, because there are very few jobs (automation) and there are lots of people to do those jobs (globalism).

Well, I have to disagree. The problem isn't that developed world workers are competing on the global stage, but that they aren't competing. I can't speak for the obstacles that hinder employment in other countries, but the US has imposed substantial barriers to employing US citizens.

For example, Social Security increases the cost of US labor by about 15%. That's about a tenth of the difference in cost between a US worker and a Chinese worker of similar skills. Similar losses come from how the US does hea

I'm well aware that the sort of dog-eat-dog Capitalism I'm talking about only exists for the lower classes, and that the rich do not participate in it.

The State != corporation. It is quite possible for the vast majority of people to use the Gov't for the benefit of all. In point of fact, it's the only hope. You need a large entity to stand up to the awesome power we allow the 1% to have. Conservatives threaten us with the grim specter of a repressive Government, but where as my Government might oppress

With all due respect, you ought to get your story straight. If it IS fundamentally broken, it's because of its own built-in failings, not because it is being distorted by government. That's pretty much by the definition of the terms of the argument. Otherwise, there is a problem with logic.

If, on the other hand, it is NOT fundamentally broken, then you have to explain why it is no

No. On the contrary. You need a government to tell COMPANIES what they can and cannot do.

Governments are supposed to represent the citizens, therefore they should do whatever best helps their citizens.

If that means companies have to comply to all kinds of rules and regulations then I see no problem in that. Companies wouldn't mind either, because they are not living things. Managers and shareholders might not like it, but they're citizens like everybody else, and their well-being is no less of more important than that of anybody else.

How do they do that? By having people pay for services/goods. Why do they pay for goods and services? Because they improve people's quality of living. If they did not, they wouldn't be bought and the company would go

Companies maximize profit through fraud. Convince people their inferior widget is better, and they make more, even if the widget is provably inferior. So the corporations interests are directly at odds with the government's. The government should be pushing for labeling laws and such, while the corporations are opposing them. Corporations don't care about quality of life, they care about profit, and getting someone addicted to alcohol or caffeine (and keeping safer alternatives, like marijuana, illegal) is better for the corporation, even if worse for the people and the government.

Raj deserves the job, but I also deserve to be able to buy all goods I need for myself at the same prices Raj does. Only then we are on equal footing with corporations.

But if a corporation can outsource labor to Raj, paying him pennies, but then sell the products to me for First World prices, and pocket the difference? That's fucked up for both me and Raj, and it's not really a free market, either. And that's what globalization is in practice today.

I really have no problems with unions the abstract, but in practice I cannot support them due to the laws in the US. If workers are striking, the employer absolutely has the right to fire them. Just as every employee is different, so should their contract. Collective bargaining is an absolutely silly way to conduct business. Even though Joe, Bob and Frank all have the same job and the same experience, they each have their own wants, needs and ability levels. If Joe is much better than Bob and Frank at his j

Joe, Bob, and Frank should make the decision on whether their interests align (i.e. to unionize and bargain collectively), not you or I with abstract arguments. Historical and present-day evidence shows that unionization increases wages, benefits, and working conditions across the board. "United we stand, divided we fall" and all that.

Precisely. Although Unions have their own problems that they bring to the table, the general effect is to improve the worker's conditions, safety, wages, etc. As long as they are watched as closely as the Corporations (and to be honest they watch each other), then some balance can be struck where everyone benefits. Without Unions, Corporations are free to abuse their workers without check.Yes, as people will point out, the worker's are free to quit if they want to - and if they are aware of the problems in the first place - but that is not always a viable alternative in a society and economy where finding a job is practically like winning the lottery at times.Left to themselves, I think most corporations *will* misuse and abuse their workers in the name of profit.

Are you kidding? If the radiation detector reaches a certain level, that means the contractor has to kick that employee to the curb and hire a fresh one. You know how much that cuts into the profit margin?

it's really an IQ test to see if the workers are really intelligent enough to be working at such a location. Slip your radiation detector badge into the shielded sleeve and you get reassigned to digging utility trenches using a shovel.

People from the United States of Mexico are Mexicans. People from the United States of America are Americans. There is no other group that is called "Americans" (except by Spanish-speakers who deliberately speak English incorrectly). It's consistent and unambiguous. People from the USA are Americans.

You are insane. There is a continent called America and you are part of it, it is sometimes called Americas in English, but both forms are correct. The name "America" can refer to either US, North and South America individually or together. Any of these 4 uses is correct.

I am pretty fine with the way you chose to call your country, you can choose to be called as you wish imo, but your saying that there is no continent with such name only shows how badly US education has become.

Unions can curb criminal behavior on the part of corporations. Of course, unions being organized power, are also susceptible to being abused as well. Arguing against having any watchmen at all is a bit silly, but we need to also consider who watches the watchmen.

Unions can curb criminal behavior on the part of corporations. Of course, unions being organized power, are also susceptible to being abused as well. Arguing against having any watchmen at all is a bit silly, but we need to also consider who watches the watchmen.

The answer is not more levels of middlemen, who contribute nothing but another avenue for corruption. The answer, as suggested by others here, is support for workers rights codified by law. The fact that our current democratic process has been thoroughly subverted by the top 1% doesn't mean that adding more corrupt bureaucrats to the process is a good idea, much less the right solution.

It's a serious allegation.
And there's more coverage [nbcnews.com] than one article in Japanese.

However... I wonder how "effective" that little bit of lead shielding would actually be at "hiding" radiation exposure.

A tiny little shielding that you can wear like that won't deflect a whole lot of certain kinds of radiation.
If you have a dosimeter reading from behind the shielding, it's likely possible that officials will "correct" the reading,
based on the radiation deflection characteristics of the shield, and the r

The lead is likely very effective at reducing recorded exposure - probably cutting it by 75-90%. Most of the radiation in a typical fission product incident is beta radiation, which will be substantially attenuated by 1 mm of lead (the beta particles won't get through, but probably 1-2% of their energy may get through as bremmstrahlung X-rays). Gamma rays, will also be attenuated but only by a few % (high energy direct photons won't be significantly affected, but photons scattered from concrete, etc. will be of much lower energy, so will tend to be heavily attenuated).

There are plenty of radiation suits that offer 0.1 or 0.2 mm lead equivalent protection (they don't usually contain lead for environmental reasons, bismuth is usually used instead). These are quite useful for protection against beta energy, even if they do nothing for gamma. However, the sheer weight of even a 0.2 mm lead suit makes it only barely practical (though I understand the US military have bought a lot of them).

However, lead boots are a sensible precaution - most of the radiation in a Fukushima type incident is in the form of water soluble or suspended particles, which pool on the floor in puddles. Severe radiation injury to the feet from beta emitters is possible - 1mm lead equivalent rubber boots are tolerable to wear, and would offer substantial protection to the feet.

It is pretty condescending of you to suggest they have been "blindly trusting" anyone up until now.

And I am somewhat unclear on how the fact that a company forced its employees to lie and put them at risk is going to make them distrustful of the government?

As someone who lives in Japan, I can truly say that at least up till 3/11 the Japanese majority was exactly blindly trusting the government. And the few that did not trust the government,did not care. This is all changing now. Well there are still many that don't care, but at least there are a good percentage of people really starting to questioning the system, ready to take the red pill and unplug.

Why are corporations the only alternative? Why wouldn't you prefer rely on yourself?

If you think that Americans live shorter lives than Europeans because of the respective health care systems, how do you explain that Japanese immigrants to America live longer than Japanese in Japan (who live longer than Europeans)?

Because I have better things to be doing. (Like posting on Slashdot.) The problem with self-reliance is that it requires you to be an expert at everything you do. Not just proficient, but an expert. If the healthcare company includes a screw-you clause and you miss it, then you are screwed. Think of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The insurance companies sold many people hurricane insurance. A lot of people lost their houses to the storm surge, which the insurance claimed was "flood damage" and, if you didn't have flood insurance, you were out of luck [usatoday.com].

One does not need to be an expert to contract private health care. That is an absurd exaggeration.

Yes, insurances can be tricky and sometimes companies find loopholes to screw you, but, on the other hand, governments are incapable of providing a service with similar or better quality in high population countries. The only countries where public health care really works are countries where the population is relatively small.

Furthermore nothing prevents you from saving the money and using for treatment

Yes, insurances can be tricky and sometimes companies find loopholes to screw you, but, on the other hand, governments are incapable of providing a service with similar or better quality in high population countries. The only countries where public health care really works are countries where the population is relatively small.

This is manifestly false. As GP noted, all first world countries with public healthcare show better bang for the buck in that department than does US with its privatized healthcare model. This is regardless of whether they are countries of 3 million or 80 million.

Again reality says otherwise. States do not have the same resources of the Union and lack its autonomy.

And yet Canadian healthcare system was started by and is still managed by the provinces. Go ahead, look it up.

Additionally states are forced to attend to any citizen of the union

What made you believe that? The states can certainly restrict treatment to their citizens if need be.

. Lets say a state manages to create a functional model of health care which is much better than the other states approach and actually works. People with serious issues would migrate to said state increasing the costs until the system would collapse.

Again, Canada managed to do just that and survive. Saskatchewan was the first province to introduce universal healthcare, and it took 15 years for other provinces to catch up. But it turned out that once the first province was willing to run the experiment, and it proved to work, others had much more

Cadana has less than 35 million inhabitants with the resources of a continental country. UK, South Korea, France, Germany and Spain all have higher populations with far less resources.

And yes, you can just waltz in and move to another State easily in any democratic country, and depending on the costs of the treatment it is far cheaper to rent an address in a relatively low cost area just to be treated in that state.

You are trying to defend that something that has never been done, to achieve universal

Why are corporations the only alternative? Why wouldn't you prefer rely on yourself?

Why would you prefer to rely on yourself in a moment of weakness - such as injury or illness - rather than cashing in on the benefits of living in a society? Why pretend that you're alone when you're not?

Here [stanford.edu]:
"The cohort of Japanese men in the Honolulu Heart Program studies has a life expectancy that is longer than their counterparts in Japan, and Japan has the longest life expectancy of any country in the world."

"The cohort of Japanese men in the Honolulu Heart Program studies has a life expectancy that is longer than their counterparts in Japan, and Japan has the longest life expectancy of any country in the world."

I don't see any attempt to make adjustments for the different lifestyle the cohort had, for example, being in internment camps might contribute to a longer lifetime, also, the cohort were not exposed to the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs which may result in a lower lifetime for the Japanese people in Ja

You know, it would be a lot easier to refute anti nuclear fears as being overly paranoid if we stopped giving them reasons to be just that. The situation would be have been under much better control and (slightly) less of a PR disaster if they would just stop with the lies.

Thyroid cysts or nodules are being found [telegraph.co.uk] in 36% of 38,000 Fukushima children. A 2001 study in Nagasaki found an incidence of 0%. Thyroid is associated with iodine, as the substance is essential to its function. Iodine-131 was a considerable component of the contaminants released in the incident.

"Yes, 35.8 percent of children in the study have lumps or cysts, but this is not the same as cancer," said Naomi Takagi, an associate professor at Fukushima University Medical School Hospital, which administered the tests.

"We do not know that cause of this, but it is hard to believe that is due to the effects of radiation," she said. "This is an early test and we will only see the effects of radiation exposure after four or five years."

Nice try trying to play that angle down by the professor there. I note she didn't seem to offer any alternative explanation.

Virtually all the children living near Chernobyl had to have their thyroids removed. It is a known effect of getting radioactive iodine in the body, especially children's bodies. Fukushima put lots of iodine in the surrounding area. There is no other reasonable explanation.

Apparently we underestimated the speed with which these cysts develop.

At this point it time, there is no study that "proves" cigarette smoke causes cancer in humans. So we should lift all rules imposed assuming as much until a causal link is proven, not just the strong correlation and proof in non-human creatures. After all, without *proof* lets act like the opposite is true, regardless of the likelihoods of each.

She doesn't have to. It's only been ~1 year since the incident and it relates to the release of iodine, which not only decays extremely rapidly but was counteracted quickly with the distribution of iodine tablets. Not only that, thyroid exams aren't exactly common anywhere. I imagine you'd see interesting things if you did similar examinations in random locations around the US.

If there's an abnormal thyroid nodules and cysts that are not cancerous, one of the obvious first places to look is at the iodine tablets. It's not hard to imagine the parents being very diligent at administering those.

Government coverup. Just like they lied about how much radiation there really was. (Turns out they cut their readings by 1/3rd.) Or how the government claimed the air quality at the burning WTC wreckage was "safe" even though it wasn't. Governments don't protect the people; they lie, inveigle, and deny.

I also read an article in the July issue of Popular Science that says that right after the disaster, the Japanese government doubled the amount they listed as the "safe" amount of radiation per year.I would love it if we started switching to the micro nuke power plants, but how can we? The world governments' first reaction to a nuclear disaster is to lie and cover up.

In order to safely operate today's generation of nuclear fission reactors, you need the operators and regulators to be transparent and competent. The folks running this Fukushima travesty are neither transparent nor competent.

Therefore I am forced to conclude that the human race in 2012 does not have the moral credibility to be trusted to operate nuclear fission reactors.

A man mugged me. Therefore all men are thieves. Some woman betrayed me with my best friend therefor all women are cunt. Generalizing is stupid. You are generalizing from one company to the whole fucking human race. This is neither interresting nor insightful.

This is actually pretty typical when technocrats are in charge. Because they have huge stockpiles of paid-for dosimeters that workers use every day, but which saturate at very low levels, they decide they're going to use those by putting them behind a shield and then adjusting the readings correspondingly. Makes sense, except they give absolutely no consideration to appearances. Ignorant journalists and nutty lefty conspiracy theorists then have a field day.

Are you being paid by TEPCO to tell lies or are you just a worthless piece of shit who has no fucking idea whatsoever about the physics of ionizing radiation, radiation safety or how dosimeters work? I'm leaning towards the latter myself. You're just some conservative or libertarded piece of shit who wanted to post some stupid shit and rant about "ignorant journalists and nutty lefty conspiracy theorists". If you start looking at radiation accidents you find that a depressingly large number of them happen b

This is actually pretty typical when technocrats are in charge. Because they have huge stockpiles of paid-for dosimeters that workers use every day, but which saturate at very low levels, they decide they're going to use those by putting them behind a shield and then adjusting the readings correspondingly. Makes sense, except they give absolutely no consideration to appearances. Ignorant journalists and nutty lefty conspiracy theorists then have a field day.

I'm pretty sure that what he's claiming just wouldn't work, because lead shielding attenuates different kinds of radiation at wildly different rates, so there's no way to calculate the workers' actual radiation exposure from the readings the dosimeter behind the shielding gives.